Films from 2004

As I move on in the years I notice a trend in my film lists. I notice that more and more of them are films that I saw in theatres. It started out with just four from 2000 and that number is now at 12. I started to broaden my horizons and look to new directors and writers for interesting films. That, and I was given more freedom to be on my own and I relished that opportunity so I made the most of it. I set time aside during my weekends, and weekdays to go and see films that I wanted to see.

This years list is truer to a ranking than any other list I've made. Starting with the films I really, really loved and ending with ones that I also enjoyed quite a bit.

• Kill Bill Vol. 2
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Sideways
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Friday Night Lights
• Spider-Man 2
• The Incredibles
• The Bourne Supremacy
• Shaun of the Dead
• Collateral
• Super-Size Me
• Anchorman
• Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
• Team America: World Police
• The Girl Next Door

"The Girl Next Door" is one of those movies where I saw the trailer and I knew I was going to see it because I knew I would like it. I saw it at a special "Sneak Preview" event about a month before it's actual release so I was excited. I did end up liking it, but after letting it sit for a while and reading and hearing reviews for it I began to think less and less of it. I knew I liked it but my love for it was dwindling. My opinion had changed. I started to not like it at all. Was I that susceptible to other people's opinions? Or were the reviewers expecting something different and just disappointed by the end result?

It wasn't laugh-out-loud hilarious as "Harold & Kumar" or "Team America" but it had something else that I didn't quite discover until I thought about the film as a whole. It has heart. It's a coming-of-age story about love, life, and pursuing a dream in the face of overwhelming obstacles. It is often dismissed as a gross-out teen comedy in the vein of "Porky's" or "American Pie" but it's not. Those films are their own genre of teen comedy. "The Girl Next Door" is a mature teen comedy with a great cast in Emile Hirsch ("Into the Wild"), Elisha Cuthbert ("24"), Timothy Olyphant ("Deadwood"), Paul Dano ("There Will Be Blood"), and Chris Marquette ("Joan of Arcadia"). If you missed it the first time around, or even a second time, the third time's the charm.